Original Post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1syt29v/my_players_want_to_be_cars/
So I ran the car one shot and it worked really well, all it took was a little homebrewing, some adjustments at the table and the coolest players in the world. I made up a movement system to account for acceleration along with some basic quality of life fixes and dropped them in a world that was essentially a flattened ruined post-army-occupation land. The cars were from Irradiator Spring, an enormous crater with a magically rejuvenating Well of Petroleum. I put my personal ancient piece of shit 2003 Mazda 323 Protege in the position of leader of the petroleum car civilisation and gave them a religion worshipping the Great Spirit of Acceleration, with their Jesus-type figure being the Great Horse that all the cars looked after in a paddock to allow the Great Horse Power to flow through them.
They went on an adventure away from the Well of Petroleum to the centre of their little world to confront the Tesla Clan, electric vehicles that could survive in remote areas by recharging with portable means. They fought a pack of Segways to start with, scavengers who set spike traps and chop up cars for scrap, essentially your classic wolf fight.
Then, they had to capture a Smart Car from a remote garage which involved taking out the Tesla guard and chasing the Smart Car down as it tried to get away.
Finally, it culminated in assaulting an electrical generator that could transform regular electric cars into Lightning McQueens, operated by the fearsome Cybertruck.
The basic mechanics of all cars are as follows:
As a Car:
You are telepathic.
You have an invisible mage hand.
Your speed is 60ft but continuous movement doubles your speed every turn until you reach your max speed of 960ft (tier 5)
Tier 1: 60ft
Tier 2: 120ft
Tier 3: 240ft
Tier 4: 480ft
Tier 5: 960ft.
Your movement comes with a ram attack as an action, which deals 1d12 per 30ft moved to a cap of 10d12 (reached at tier 4). You take half the damage, reduced to a quarter if you succeed on a DC 10 con save (15 for motorbikes).
If you turn more than 90 degrees your move speed is halved and reset to Tier 1 unless you succeed on a DC 10 acrobatics check to drift.
If you acquire nitrous oxide, you may use it as part of your movement to immediately skip to the next speed tier.
You have a damage threshold of 10.
Your health is multiplied by 5.
I also gave each player a set of abilities based on their car type and class. Some examples include giving the player who was a Kawasaki Ninja rogue the ability to launch a grappling hook to drag small vehicles around/reach higher platforms or pop a wheelie to take on an acrobatics check and gain a speed boost, giving the Honda Odyssey wizard the ability to sacrifice movement tiers to gain a boost to spell attacks, save DCs and damage, and giving the Toyota Echo Echo Knight the ability to summon the ghost of a dinosaur from the spiritual energy resonating in its fossil fuel reserves.
The strongest attacks always ended up being rams, so the drift mechanic became very important to get around obstacles and maintain speed for high damage rams, and repairs are hard to come by so taking the damage yourself became an important trade off.
Some shenanigans that were the highlights for me personally:
- The Odyssey Wizard cast enlarge on itself and rammed two segways at full speed, succeeding on a con save against spike strips which would have otherwise been devastating.
- The Rogue launched a dagger at a window to shatter it and cast grease inside a Tesla and the Echo Knight launched its cigarette lighter inside to ignite it.
- The Echo Knight used its echo to fully box in a Tesla who had to do an athletics check to escape.
- The Odyssey Wizard cast enlarge again and drifted in front of the fleeing Smart Car to engulf and trap it within itself.
TL;DR:
Dnd absolutely can accommodate playing as cars if you’re willing to put in a little bit of homebrew work and have players who want to have fun.